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Ok so I'm starting Mordheim in the near future (see: once I've got the models for it x.x), and I'm just looking for some general thoughts on the Skaven in game. How should they be played? How have YOU played them? What should I focus on for the beginning of my campaign? What units worked out best for you?

Keep in mind, I've never played mordheim past a single demo of it back in the Old Dakka Store on their AMAZING table (What ever happened to all the terrain from that store btw?!). So any info you might have would be more than awesome. So, Share it! Help a brother out!

BTW This is what I've got finished so far for my warband.

I have never played Mordheim but only read about it. That said, what I've read was that you basically max out on characters and equip EVERYTHING (characters and henchmen) with slings. The idea is to run circles around your opponent with your superior movement and just stone them to death. Works well especially since you can fire two shots with slings if you stand still (I think).

Well, I recently played Skaven (sort of, at least) in our local campaign, so let me give you some advice.
- you should definetly get at least one black skaven with fighting claws. In combination with the art of silent death skill, it can get really ugly.
- always take the sidestep combat skill if you can
- an eshin sorcerer with Black Fury can be good for a few nasty surprises here and there. My Sorcerer has the most kills in my warband.
- Weeping blades are IMO not that great, but that may be because I played against a lot of undead stuff.
- Rat Ogres rule! Altough they can't get any experience, it's always good to have a big guy on you side.

Thanks a ton for the insight ^_^. I'll definitely keep that all in mind as I move forward with my warband.

Hey Anung Un Rama,

You wouldn't happen to have your starting warband list for skaven would you?

I'd love to see how you started out. Still in the build phase of my warband so I'm wondering what a list 'should' look like ^_-.

I will for sure have a full set of heroes (adepts, black skaven x2, sorcerer, and newbies), as well as a rat ogre for the cool factor and then a few Verminkin. Honestly I guess it's just load outs I'm wondering about.

well, I did a few mistakes with my starting list here and there, since it was mostly based on the models I had at hand. I used skaven rules, but my models were all Ninjas, scavanged from several games and companies. When I played my first game in the campaing I didn't know anything about how what would really work, so I just bought the stuff which fitted the models.
I also couldn't get myself any of the cool gadgets from the beginning, since the Rat Ogre was so expensive. I just NEEDED to have him in the list from the start, because....well, where else could I ever use this model

sure not in my Ogre pirate army . I don't think you really need the rat ogre from the beginning, but the problem is, that if you want him it'll cost ya. So, if you want to get one later , you'll need to save a lot of your money. Or roll really good during scavanging.

I would also recomend that you buy only large squads of verminkin, so that as many henchmen as possible will get an eventuell stat increase. I got 4 different Henchmen at the beginngin, because none of the models in my warband would fit in one squad.

Well I dove head first into the campaign tonight. I fought Carnival of Chaos and Possessed.

CoC beat me down pretty easily in a Skirmish. It was my first game of Mordheim ever so I really didn't know what to expect, I stood off and tried to use ranged a lot as I was somewhat timid to pull the trigger and get to grips with the enemy. As a result I got split up pretty badly and ended up losing my adept really early to a plaguebearer. I have to say, I really don't enjoy fighting demons with skaven, and I'll probably do my best to avoid having to do so in the future, to include during games, going around them to force a route check is probably my best bet.

For the game against the Possessed, things went much more in my favor. We played a Chance Encounter, and I deployed second. I got my sorcerer and night runners up to a third story with LOS on an intersection the possessed would be coming down. And the main group of my close combat down the street about 14-16 inches or so. When they moved into the intersection, they took a Warpfire from my sorcerer (which ROCKS when it goes off btw), and lost one and put another on his face. Then the charge from 5 skaven put a possessed out as well as another model (not sure what it was honestly). This forced the route and I won the match. Deployment was key in the win. Fighting claws and Weeping Blades on Black Skaven = dead stuff.

Most of my warband leveled up after the second game, it was all stat increases. Unfortunately my leader was injured for the second game and couldn't participate.

I'll post my warband list once I get it solidified and transferred (I just wrote it out on a white piece of paper x.x).

Really enjoying the game so far.

Redeemer's basically on target.

If you want a powergamed Skaven army, try something like this:

Adept - sling, extra dagger
Black Skaven - sling, extra dagger
Black Skaven - sling, extra dagger
Sorcerer - extra dagger
Night Runner - sling, club
Night Runner - sling, club

3 Verminkin - sling, club
3 Verminkin - sling, club
2 Verminkin - sling, club
2 Verminkin - sling, club

That gives you 24 gcs left over, I believe. That's almost enough for another Verminkin in case you take a death the first time out. You can always buy the fighting claws later.

EDIT: I think I miscalculated. I believe this leaves you with 1 GC. You could consider dropping one Verminkin so you have 26 GCs in reserve and stay under the wyrdstone selling breakpoint.

Even if you don't follow this template, you should:

1) Start with six heroes. They bring you gold, gold fuels the warband.
2) Sling, sling, and sling some more. Charge in only when you can bring overwhelming numbers to bear.
3) Field a lot of Skaven.
4) Avoid armor.
5) Use extra hand weapons.

Hope that helps.

I hear the carnival is pretty overpowered.....

Anung Un Rama wrote:I hear the carnival is pretty overpowered.....

Especially when they get demon heavy and the leader has that spell that gives all demons a 4+ save.......

That "nuke" spell -- whatever it's called -- is scary as hell. It almost never goes off, but when it does it takes out half your warband. Or has that been changed since the list was released?

Don't get me started on the cart and the more holey than swiss cheese rules from EoF it's based on.

I skipped over the rules yesterday....ouch.....some of those Warbands seem waaaaaay to overpowered. Pit Fighters, anyone?

The more expansions and warbands they did for that game, the more cluttered and imbalanced it got. I ran a MH league off and on for years. Unless you take a firm hand with regards to what warbands are permissable, things get really out of hand.

Lizardmen in Mordheim? Umm...

So what would you guys recommend, as far as what warbands to allow? If you just stick to the basic warbands provided in the first book, does that make for a pretty balanced campaign?

Seems like that's what most people think.

I am currently in a campaign that has certain warbands disallowed.

Actually, here is the breakdown of the campaign rules minus a few ancillary things:


Disallowed Hired Swords
Dark Emmisary/ Truthsayer (Out of the Mists)
Markus the Mad (Dramatis Personae)
'Comp Runners Up' Article entries
All Nemesis Crown Hired Swords
Beggar (New Hired Swords)
Imperial Tactician (New Hired Swords)
Wood Elf Hunter (New Hired Swords)
Emmisary of Chaos (New Hired Swords)

Amendments
Witch only starts with one spell (Fortune Hunters)
Cult of the Possessed may not hire an Ogre Body Guard.


Disallowed Warbands
Shadow Elves
Hochland Bandits
Dwarf Rangers
Imperial Outriders
Imperial Gunnery School of Nuln

Amendments
Cult of the Possessed:
For every Beastman that is hired you must also hire either a Dark Soul or a Breathren to your warband roster


Armor Rules
Shield +2sv (5gc)
Bucker +1sv, parry (5gc)
Light Armor 6+sv (10gc)
Heavy Armor 5+sv, -1 movement if combined with a sheild (20gc)
Full Plate Armor 4+sv, -1 movement (50gc)
Ithilmar Armor 5+sv (50gc)
Gromril Armor 4+sv (75gc)

Amendments
Optional Missile Critical Hits Chart. Under result 5-6 "Master Shot" remove the line "There is no armour save"
Optional Bladed Weapon Critical Hits Chart. Under result 5-6 "Sliced!" remove the words "ignores armour saves"

Skill Rules
No two Heroes or Hired Swords can have the same combination of skills nor may you choose the same skill two times in a row.

Weapon Amendments
Handguns are Strength 5

Critical Hit Table
We will use the specific weapon tables located in the back of the rulebook.

I'll have a much better opinion once I've completed my first campaign ^_^;

I like those campaign rules, make me a little interested in MH again. I actually wanted to make a possessed warband recently with the new plastic ghouls and flagellants out, but backed down ...

I think I'll dig out and post up my old Skaven roster from back when I started playing MH with the boxed game. IIRC I lost every game with them, as opposed to my Middenheimers who won every game

- Salvage

When will I get to see your hidden warband in action, Grey-death? My Norse are already ridiculously huge, sitting at 17 models (and mine have large axes!)

Jhagadurn wrote:When will I get to see your hidden warband in action, Grey-death? My Norse are already ridiculously huge, sitting at 17 models (and mine have large axes!)

This Thursday I'll be bringing them out of hiding. They're sitting at a lot less models than everyone else though which is a bit of an issue x.x...go go missing two weeks of games. Maybe I'll pick up a little something when I get down to BFG. We'll see. It's either that or I deck my guys out in some crazy wargear.

Hordini wrote:So what would you guys recommend, as far as what warbands to allow? If you just stick to the basic warbands provided in the first book, does that make for a pretty balanced campaign?

Yeah, I'd argue that the rulebook warbands are the most balanced. The early expansion warbands are mostly okay. Orcs and Goblins and Dwarf Treasure Hunters are quite strong in some aspects and quite weak in others. Averlanders are strong but not overpowered. Ostlanders are okay. The mk.II Beastmen list is IMO quite strong, although many point to the lack of 2-wound Beastmen and feel it's softer than the mk. I version.

What you should stay away from is most of the stuff in the EoF and Lustria supplements, at least in terms of mixing it in with stuff from the original setting. There's a lot more enthusiasm than balance in those.

And keep the hell away from Carnival and Pit Fighters (they can have a trollslayer and an Ogre as regular members!!!).

I also hear that shadwo elfs are pretty hard.

My skaven won another battle last night, against the same Carnival of Chaos they lost to in their first game. It was a treasure hunt and the counter ended up being in the building near the CoC's table edge with baddies all around. I pushed as much force into HtH and prayed for a Route. After knocking out three of his he could delay his first test a turn (unholy relic), and I ended up taking a test first which I passed. He took his first route the next turn and passed it. Finally after forcing 5 members out of the game, he had to take another and this time failed it.

Warband ratings for this game were:
Skaven: 110
Carnival: 183

Weeping Blades are really working out for me. Lots of auto wounds this game.

I lost a henchmen, but I'm going to attempt to buy him back before the next battle.

Lots of 'levels' this time around thanks to all of the xp gained from underdog and pushing out so many of his guys.

Good times.